Songs without Words

Ann Packer's debut novel, "The Dive from Clausen's Pier, "was a nationwide bestseller that established her as one of our most gifted chroniclers of the interior lives of women.Now, in her long-awaited second novel, she takes us on a journey into a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point.

Liz and Sarabeth were childhood neighbors in the suburbs of northern California, broughtas close as sisters by the suicide of Sarabeth's mother when the girls were just sixteen. In the decades that followed-through Liz's marriage and the birth of her children, throughSarabeth's attempts to make a happy life for herself despite the shadow cast by her mother's act-their relationship remained a source of continuity and strength. But when Liz'sadolescent daughter enters dangerous waters that threaten to engulf the family, the fault lines in the women's friendship are revealed, and both Liz and Sarabeth are forced to reexamine their most deeply heldbeliefs about their connection. "Songs Without Words "is about the sometimes confining roles we take on in our closest relationships, about the familial myths that shape us both as children and as parents, and about the limits-and the power-of the friendships we create when we are young.

"From the Trade Paperback edition."

Ann Packer received the Great Lakes Book Award for The Dive from Clausen's Pier, which was a national bestseller. She is also the author of Mendocino and Other Stories. She is a past recipient of a James Michener award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and other magazines, as well as in Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards. She lives in northern California with her family.

www.annpacker.com

From the Trade Paperback edition.